Chris Waller

Chris Waller is acknowledged as the undisputed King of Australian racing

Chris began his racing career as a strapper for Paddy Busuttin’s Foxton stable and took over the stable as trainer in 1997, training 5 winners in his first season, and 66 winners in total in NZ before relocating to Warwick Farm in Sydney to continue his training career.

Since 2011 Chris has won seven consecutive Sydney Training Premierships, and seven Bart Cummings Medals with winners of over A$175.6 million in stake winnings and still counting.

Chris Has trained numerous Group One winners including World Champion race mare and three times Cox Plate winner Winx.

Colin Jillings

The trainer known as much to his friends as the racing public as “Jillo” handed in his trainers licence in 2004. He had held that licence for an amazing 54 years.

Regarded as a master trainer of stayers, he trained 1327 winners in total, 703 of those in partnership with fellow trainer Richard Yuill.

Often referred to as “racing’s gentleman trainer” and respected and admired by his peers, Jillings was renowned for his ability to set a horse for a race after mapping out the target a long way out.
Saddling his first winner, Lawful, while still aged in his 20s, to win the Great Northern Derby in 1958, Jillings was to go on and win a Derby in each subsequent decade up to his retirement.

As well as training five New Zealand Derby winners, he trained three New Zealand Oaks winners, and won four Auckland Cups, a Wellington Cup and two New Zealand Cups.

His versatility as a trainer were also demonstrated in jumps racing where he won three Great Northern Steeples and two Great Northern Hurdles.

Associated with many memorable horses, some of his best performers included Uncle Remus, McGinty and The Phantom Chance, who won the WS Cox Plate from the Jillings/Yuill stable as well as the New Zealand Derby.

Dave O'Sullivan

The only apprentice to salute the judge before a young Queen Elizabeth at the Royal Ellerslie meeting of 1953 – not a bad win, either: the Railway Handicap on Te Awa – O’Sullivan rode for less than a decade (125 winners) before weight problems forced him out. Setting up as a trainer at Matamata, he first became known as a successful mentor of apprentices. Roger Lang, Peter Johnson, Shane Dye and eventually his son Lance were just some of the top riders who came from the stable. Equine winners also came off the property in a steadily expanding stream until (ultimately in partnership with his son Paul) O’Sullivan found a regular place at the top of trainers’ list. Dave O’Sullivan retired in 1998 with a lifetime tally of 1877 wins (at present the New Zealand record), 1613 in partnership with Paul. Dave won the premiership on his own in 1978-79, another 10 titles in partnership with Paul. Oopik, Golden Rhapsody, Sharivari, Waverley Star, Paul De Brett, La Souvronne, Blue Denim, Mapperley Heights and champion mare Horlicks were among the many Group One performers to wear the O’Sullivan polish.

Dave O'Sullivan is proudly sponsored by TRAC racing consortium which consists of the racing clubs in the Bay of Plenty, Taupo, Te Aroha and Matamata regions.

Dick Mason

Richard Mason was regarded as the outstanding trainer of New Zealand racing’s first epoch. His record in what would now be described as New Zealand’s black-type races remains unmatched to this day and he made regular trips across the Tasman over a period of 20-plus years to beat the Australians on their home ground. Mason trained for 22 years for George Stead when Stead was the dominant owner in the country – indeed, no owner since has equalled the dominance achieved by the yellow and black Stead colours around the turn of the 20th Century. On Stead’s death, Mason went training for a new patron, George Dean Greenwood, and for him won a further 11 Derbies, 10 Jackson Plates, nine CJC Challenge Stakes… well, a further 58 races on either side of the Tasman which would these days carry black type. He was credited at his death with having trained 30 Derby winners, on either side of the Tasman, and he won 57 races with the great Gloaming alone. Dick Mason died in 1932, in his 80th year, just a week after Gloaming died, aged 17, on George Greenwood’s Teviotdale Station.

Dick Mason was sponsored by Hamilton based accountancy firm - Beattie Rickman which has recently merged with PricewaterhouseCoopers New Zealand. Please call 07-838-3838 or go to www.clevercompanies.co.nz for further information.

James Bartholomew "Bart" Cummings

Bart Cummings is the New Zealand Hall of Fame’s first honorary inductee.

James Bartholomew “Bart” Cummings has never raced a horse in New Zealand, but no overseas trainer has done more to promote the New Zealand stayer through the success he has achieved with the New Zealand thoroughbred.

Bart saddled an astonishing 12 Melbourne Cup winners, with eight of these being New Zealand-bred.

An astute judge, Bart has been a major buyer at New Zealand yearling sales since the early 1960s.

A legend of the Australian turf in Australia, Bart was awarded the Order of Australia and was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Hall of Fame.

Sponsor: Cambridge Stud

James Bartholomew "Bart" Cummings Interview

Bart Cummings is the New Zealand Hall of Fame’s first honorary inductee.

James Bartholomew “Bart” Cummings has never raced a horse in New Zealand, but no overseas trainer has done more to promote the New Zealand stayer through the success he has achieved with the New Zealand thoroughbred.

Bart saddled an astonishing 12 Melbourne Cup winners, with eight of these being New Zealand-bred.

An astute judge, Bart has been a major buyer at New Zealand yearling sales since the early 1960s.

A legend of the Australian turf in Australia, Bart was awarded the Order of Australia and was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Hall of Fame.

Jim Gibbs

As a jockey, trainer, owner, breeder, mentor, and astute judge of a horse ‘gentleman Jim’ has done it all at group one level.

Jim Gibb’s career started at a very early age in the saddle – winning many prestigious jumping races.

Jim began training while still riding. Preparing 145 stakes winners, Jim reached the apogee of his career as a trainer in the 1980s when, with a team of modest size and sometimes modest pedigrees, lining up as many as five runners in major northern group events.

Jim was the first Kiwi to train the winners of $1 million in New Zealand, in 1986-87, and the first to saddle the winners of $2 million in a season - two years later.

Tidal Light was the star three-year-old of the 1986-87 racing season, racking up 10 wins, including the group one New Zealand Derby at Ellerslie.

Gibbs won the 1989 Auckland Cup with Spyglass and enjoyed Melbourne Cup success as an owner through a retained share in Doriemus who won the 1995 Melbourne and Caulfield Cups when trained in Melbourne by Lee Freedman.

Revered as a mentor for trainers and young apprentice jockeys, Jim will be remembered for producing 36 apprentice jockeys, a future generation of trainers, and as an respected gentleman – a trait backed up by a ‘racing personality of the year’ award.

Jim signed off his training career with a winner, as he did with his last ride on Pretty Peen some 43 years earlier, after 47 years as a trainer and was recognised for his contribution to thoroughbred racing when awarded the Member of NZ Order Of Merit.

John Wheeler

During his hay day, John Wheeler was more successful in Australia than any other New Zealand trainer of modern times.

In Australia John trained three near-champions – Poetic Prince, Rough Habit, and Veandercross and won many major Australian races (including a dozen Group Ones) with all three horses.

John has dominated the Australia's jumping scene for many years (winning seven Great Eastern Steeplechases at Oakbank) and won what is arguable the greatest jumping race in the world – the Nakayama Grand Jump in Tokyo with outstanding jumper St Steven.

A leading trainer at home John continues to be a great ambassador for his country.

John Wheeler (MNZM Induction)

During his hay day, John Wheeler was more successful in Australia than any other New Zealand trainer of modern times.

In Australia John trained three near-champions – Poetic Prince, Rough Habit, and Veandercross and won many major Australian races (including a dozen Group Ones) with all three horses.

John has dominated the Australia's jumping scene for many years (winning seven Great Eastern Steeplechases at Oakbank) and won what is arguable the greatest jumping race in the world – the Nakayama Grand Jump in Tokyo with outstanding jumper St Steven.

A leading trainer at home John continues to be a great ambassador for his country.

Ken Browne

In 1977 Ken Browne became the first man to own, train and ride the winner of the Great Northern Steeplechase when he rode the tough gelding Ascona to victory.

Two years later the combination repeated the feat.

Browne would go on to train, in later years in partnership with his wife Ann, a further seven Great Northern Steeplechase winners as well as three Great Northern Hurdle winners.

Ken, an enthusiastic amateur from the time he left school in the 1950’s, recorded numerous wins as a jumps jockey. He was New Zealand’s leading jumps jockey in the calendar years 1981 and 1984 and in the 1986-87 racing seasons.

That enthusiasm was to span a remarkable fifty years during which Ken as an owner trainer prepared more than 500 winners over jumps. Together, he and wife Ann won most of New Zealand’s major jumping races, many of them several times.

From the 1980s he, and later with Ann, had jumping teams in work of a size never approached by another owner or trainer, except perhaps by Bill Hazlett in his heyday.

The consequence was that Browne runners frequently made up more than half a field and it is seriously doubtful whether northern jumps racing would have survived without the Browne’s contribution.

Browne’s success in the saddle remarkably increased as he grew older, with his peak coming during the 1978-1993 period when he was aged between 44 and 59.

One of Ken Browne’s stars was the great Sydney Jones, who had 56 starts over the steeples for 11 wins, earning $273,450 in stakes. Included in those wins were two McGregor Grant Steeplechases, two Pakuranga Hunt Cups and a win in the Great Northern Steeplechase.

In 2001 Ken Browne suffered a serious riding accident at his home which left him a tetraplegic confined to a wheelchair.

Not one to sit back, Browne was still training from his wheelchair and was a regular at the races to watch his and Ann’s horses. Two weeks prior to his passing in 2006, at the age of 72, Ken was at Ellerslie when he had two winners including a victory in the inaugural running of the race named after him, the K S Browne Hurdles.

Laurie Laxon

Born 1946, became successful trainer in New Zealand from where his highlights were the 1988 Melbourne Cup with Empire Rose and the 1993 Hong Kong International Cup with Romanee Conti.

Moved in 2000 to Singapore, where he was nine times champion trainer up to 2014. In 2004 became first to train 100 winners in a Singapore season and beat that with 104 in 2008. In 2013 became the first to train 1000 winners in Singapore.

Maurice McCarten

A champion jockey in the 1920s and 1930s, Maurice McCarten won two NZ jockey premierships, aged 20 and 21, and moved to Sydney, where he rode three winners at his first appearance on an Australian course. He won many major races in Australia and turned to training in 1942, winning four Sydney trainers premierships and then finishing second 10 times to T.J. Smith. Delta, Todman and Wenona Girl were among the champion horses he trained.

Murray Baker

Murray Baker - Trainer

Trainer Murray Baker is a horseman who loves the racing game with a passion

Murray was born in Hawkes Bay and worked as 12-year-old before school in stables of Greenmeadows trainer Harry Greene in Napier where he rode track work.

Murray played 1st class cricket for Central Districts, winning two Plunket Shields and professional cricket and England. He commenced training 1978-79 and saddled his first stakes winner in 1979 at Awapuni. Baker trained at Woodville from the mid-1980s before relocating to Cambridge in 2000.

He is now nearing 1,400 training successes both solo and in partnership – initially with son Bjorn and latterly with Andrew Foresman. Murray has trained the winners of 21 Group One races in Australia from his NZ base – more than any other New Zealand trainer in history. Champions he has trained include The Phantom, Dundeel, Turn Me Loose, Mongolian Khan and Bonneval. He has trained four winners of the AJC Derby including Jon Snow, Nom Du Jeu, Mongolian Khan and Dundeel.

Ray Verner

Ray Verner took up training reluctantly to help his aging father at the time. Over time he became a master trainer, renowned for his conditioning of horses and was named NZ Racing Personality of the Year in 1978.

Ray trained top stayers like Good Lord (two Wellington Cups, Sydney Cup), sprinters like Blue Blood and Gold Hope, and weight-for-age horses like Prince Majestic and The Gentry.

Ray continued as an integral part of a family training dynasty spanning more than 70 years.

Rex Cochrane

From his Southland country base at Gore, Cochrane became the first man to train a thousand winners in New Zealand. Versatile Cogitation, in the 1957 Grand National Steeplechase, was his first winner on his own account and Palimony, in July 1980, was his 1000th. Retired with a tally of 1520 wins, Game Call and Enceeoh (and Cogitation) his best jumpers; Court Belle, Castle Flight and Yipp’s Secret among his best on the flat.

Syd Brown

Winner of two NZ training premierships in the 1960s, Syd Brown became our most successful Aussie raider of the era, making lucrative trips with the likes of Redcraze and Summersette, Sailing Away and Dark Smudge, Daryl’s Joy (Cox Plate, VRC Derby) and Wood Court Inn; and Classic Mission (AJC and VRC Derbys). Brown then moved to Australia and trained successfully at Warwick Farm, Triton his best performer. A great friend and host to visiting Kiwis.